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BONUS EPISODE: How to Write a Super Natural Hit Film with BeetleJuice Creator Larry Wilson · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, Episode number one
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: forty eight. It is not the future that you're afraid of,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: it's repeating the past that makes you anxious. Beans Morocco
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: the jungles of the film biz.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Welcome my Indie Film Hustlers to another episode of the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Indie Film Hustle Podcast.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: I am your humble host, Alex Riri.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: How to turn your independent film into a profitable business.
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  Speaker 1: It's harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to
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  Speaker 1: The odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old
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  Speaker 1: independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the film entrepreneur
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  Speaker 1: In Rise of the Film Entrepreneur, I break down how
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  Speaker 1: filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Now
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: today I have a special treat for you guys. We've
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: got the writer and creator of Beetlejuice, Larry Wilson. I mean,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys have If some of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you guys haven't seen Beetlejuice, for God's sakes, go out
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: and see Beetlejuice. He also wrote Adam's Family. He also
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: worked on multiple episodes of the class legendary show Tales
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: from the Crypt. So he has a genre that he
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: really likes, which is the supernatural and somewhat horror aspects,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: but more supernatural stuff like Beetlejuice in Adam's family, and
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I know talking to Larry, Larry was not only a screenwriter,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: but he was also a studio executive, And in the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: interview he tells a story of how he actually fought
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: for James Cameron to get the Alien's job. That Terminator
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: had not even been released yet, and he was working
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: with Walter Hill at Walter Hill's office and they were
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: bringing him in to do the sequel for Alien, which
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: was obviously Aliens, and that people did not they didn't
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: really believe that James could do it, but Larry fought
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: for him, and among other amazing stories. Larry has been
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: around the business for a long time, has worked with
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: everybody under the sun, and it was such a pleasure
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: having him on the show. I learned a ton of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: stuff from him. He tells great stories and just on
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: just a Beetlejuice story of how Tim Burton and him
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: got together is insane, and how that whole project got
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: off the.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Ground and development hell and all this kind.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Of stuff, because if you guys know Beetlejuice, can you
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: imagine trying to get a movie like Beetlejuice produced by
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a studio today. I mean, it's just unheard of. So
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: even back then, Beetlejuice was such a unique situation that
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the studio really had no idea what to do with
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: it or how to make it. But it got made,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and boy was it ever a launching pad for both
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Larry and for a little guy named Tim Burton. But anyway,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: without any further ado, I want you guys to enjoy
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: my very spooky and enjoyable conversation with screenwriter Larry Wilson.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I'd like to welcome to the show Larry Wilson Man.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the show.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: Oh, you're welcome, Alex, thanks for having me.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of your work. I'm a nineties guy,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: so you know a lot of the work you did,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: especially in the late eighties early nineties is I was
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: in my video store days too during that time. So okay,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I think I sent you a picture, didn't I send
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: you a picture of my Yes?
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: He did, I did.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I just happened to be going through it and I
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: saw it. I was like, this is just too perfect.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: And I was standing right next to a standy for
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Adam's family, so I thought it was right.
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: I had one of those in my basement until it
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: burned up in.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: A hot house fire. Actually I had I had one
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: of those standies.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish I still had some of those standies,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: tell you the truth. So anyway, I wanted to first
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: ask you what made you want to get into the
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: very easy and profitable.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: World of writing?
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Wow?
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, there's some sarcasm in that question.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: Yes, there should be.
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: I you know, I I came to Hollywood not knowing.
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: I was a terrible student, high school student, you know,
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: just but I had a passion.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: Very.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: Very pacific, if that's a word, a passion for films
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: and wanted to do something. And I took a standalone
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: And this was like a million years ago to Alex.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, I took a standalone screenwriting.
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: Class at the time was being taught at Stella Adler
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: and the instructor, whose name sadly I'm going to forget,
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: actually saw some first pages and said you could be
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: good at this, and it just, you know, it lit
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: a fire. And I said, I just told myself, I'm
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: going to be a screenwriter, and I started writing. It
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: was back before there were a lot of resources as
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: there are now.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: About you know how that works all that.
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: I got ahold of a couple of scripts and tried
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: to mimic them, and and uh, I just I just
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: kept at it until I.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: Suffered a severe case of writer's block.
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: I sort of had a golden door out of writing,
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: which was I was a studio executive, or I was
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: a script reader and about to become had a chance
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: to become a studio executive at Paramount under Jeff Katzenberg
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: and Michael Eisner. And I did that, and I was
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: doing it pretty well, I think, but I really miss writing,
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: and I was really having qualms about the notes I
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: was giving writers, and we were sort of the iron
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: fists in the Velvet Glove.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: Studio at that point. And then I went back.
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: I finally made a decision cut the histories less and
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: short to jump back into writing. And the first thing
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: I wrote, co wrote with my partner Michael McDowell, was
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: a Beatlejuice.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Now, how did Beetlejuice come to life? Because that is
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: a very unique story.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: You know, it's so funny because.
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: The first stage of it was so it was so
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: just really over a weekend. I had a producing partner too.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: It's both late the late Michael mcdowll sadly both of
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: these was my writing partner, and the late Michael Bender
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: was my producing partner, and the three of us were
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: just talking about what we wanted to do together.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: We did.
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: We decided to have this partnership, and I said, psychedelic
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: ghost comedy. I didn't know quite what that meant.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: It's a very loose it's a very loose term for sure.
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah you think, yeah, so, but it sounded good, right, sure.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I'd watched that.
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: Interesting and Michael was living in Michael McDow my writing partner,
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: was living in Boston at that time, and he called
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: me and he said, Okay, here's what it is.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: It's the ghost haunting the humans.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: And that was like the first thing that we just went, wow, okay,
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: that's cool. And what I came back with after Michael
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: said it's the ghost or the humans haunting the ghosts.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Excuse me, the humans haunting the ghosts, and I said, oh,
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: that's great. I love that.
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: And Michael and I had kind of a funny relationship
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: just in the sense that he was very well educated.
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: I want to say Harvard, it may have been another
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: prestigious university, a very sort of sophisticated man, shall we say.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: And I had.
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: Grown up a surfer, a borderline high school dropout, so
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: we sort of had this. It was always in good fun,
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: but kind of this class war thing going on. And
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: I said, okay, Michael, it's the humans haunting the ghosts
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: and I'm the ghost and the humans are you. And
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: so that was part two of it. And then part
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: three was and this again was over just a few
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: calls over a weekend. We said, well, the humans are
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: just too the ghosts are too nice. They don't know
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: how to get the humans out of the house, so
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: they need to hire a gunfighter. And that gunfighter, of
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: course became beetletoos Uh. And it was that the premise
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: was locked down over over like a weekend of maybe
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: three four phone calls, and that was you know that
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: that that was the start of it.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Then of course all we had to do was write
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: the script, right, that.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Little part of the whole thing.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Now when you so, I'm assuming you.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Went to pitch this, I mean, and this was the eighties,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: so it's a different time, you.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: Know, what we We decided to Michael and I wanted
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: to learn to write together. Michael mcdowt was an incredibly
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: professional writer. And even though I had been a studio
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: executive at that point for several years and I was
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: also head of development for the great director Walter Hills Company,
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: like I said, I had sort of given up on screenwriting.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: Or maybe I didn't say this, but I had a
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: real case of writer's block. There was no doubt about it,
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: and and Michael helped me break through that. But we
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: decided to write the script on spec and so that
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: we we never.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: Even thought about pitching it.
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: And Michael was a writer's writer, and the idea of
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: going in and pitching an idea at that point was
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: kind of an anathema to him. And so we we
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: you know, we we wrote the script and if you
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: want to, if I can share a kind.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: Of a funny please please about that.
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: You know, Alex, I've learned, I hope, I hope you
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: and the audience doesn't mind us.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: I've sort of learned. Not the name names. Uh, it
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: comes back to haunt.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: You know, You're not the first guest to kind of
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: dance around certain names. But they like to tell stories.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: And I'm going to dance around this one, but all
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: I'm going to say.
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: What I'll say is I tip the script to a
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: very prominent studio executive and asked him to read it
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: because he liked my my work as an executive. And
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: he said yes, and he took it and he read
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: it over that when when the first draft was finished,
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: I gave it to him and he and he read
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: that over a weekend and I actually got summoned to
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: his office on Monday. Uh that's first draft of beel Too,
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: so obviously, and I thought, wow, he's calling me into
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: the office already, he's read it.
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: He you know, I fantasized he's gonna love it and
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: all that.
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: And he literally called me into his office to say,
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: what are you doing with life? What your career?
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: Uh? This thing is so weird.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: It's so out of touch with any kind of that
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: that I can imagine.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: He said, you know, you have a very you.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: Have a very good future. Why are you just gonna
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: blow that with this piece of ship? And oh my god,
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: you can imagine. I was like, I was like, you know,
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: I was pretty devastated. But there's an unsung hero in
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: all of this, uh you mentioned, Uh, Well, when we
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: when we were talking right before we started here. I
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: talked at UCLA Extension for over twenty five years, and
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: I had a student named Marjorie Lewis who had a
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: very sort of low level development job at the Geffen Company,
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: and she was sort of the smartest young woman in
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: my class at that time. And I'd given it to
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: her to read over that same weekend because I just
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: was curious what she'd say. And after having been just
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: completely derailed by this conversation with the studio executive, and
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: then he asked me what we thought we were going
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: to ask for the studio executive, what we were going
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: to ask for, you know, in terms of a selling price,
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: and I think I said like one hundred thousand dollars
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: and he just laughed, you know, I mean he so,
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: But I called Marjorie and I said, did you read it?
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: She said yes? I said did you like it? She said,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: like it.
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: I'm going to get the Geffen Company to buy it,
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: you know, And knowing Marjorie, she just kept pounded able
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: to read it, you know, so so that the idea
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: came quickly. The first draft came pretty quickly with Michael
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: and I and we put no limits on ourselves. We
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: had no thoughts about a demographic a you know, yes,
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: I suppose it's the only PG rated movie with an
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: F bomb in it, right, and and you know, and
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: then we uh, then we sold it to the Gaffam Company.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, because you could anyone who's seen Beetlejuice, you
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: can tell there is no demographic involved at all in
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: the storytelling whatsoever. But now, when did Tim Burton come
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: into play? Because it is Beetlejuice, is is It's so,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I know, you guys came up with the story. But
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I guess the way it was directed and brought to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the screen, it is so tim Burton in this, in
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: his in his esthetic. How was it collaborating with a
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: kind of young and pretty raw Tim Burton. He had
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: only done a big Top b or No Bbe's Big
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Adventure at that point, so he was still very unproven.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, you know, And and I think it's it's
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: pretty common knowledge that there was a bit of a
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: battle between Tim and and and Paul rubens Peewee about
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: whose movie it really was, you know, whose facility it
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: really was. So Tim Burton was not the Tim Burton
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: at that point.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Pee Wee, Pee Wee is not a Tim Burton
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: esque film at all. You can tell, let's not. You
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: can see a little bit of it in there, but
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: not really.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: So so you know, yes, as you said, Tim was,
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: you know, still somewhat unproven. He was, as as we
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: all know, a very idiosyncratic person and and he frightened
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: a lot of studio executives.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Still still he still frightens them.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah he does, yeah, which I love about him actually.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: But but so Michael Bender or excuse me, Michael McDowell
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: and I wrote we got to note Tim because he gosh,
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: you know, Alex, I'm trying to remember how he got
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: his hands on the first draft of Beatle just but
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: he did. And uh uh. He asked Michael and I
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: to write the Alfred Hitchcock television anthology show. This is
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: a bit of an eighties history.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: You remember.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: They colorized some of Hitchcock's openings to the show and
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: then we wrote, well, many writers wrote new episodes for
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: the anthology, but based on the Alfred Hitchcock introductions, and
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: Michael and I did one of those for Tim. It
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: was the first time we worked together, called the Jar,
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: which is available on YouTube if any Tim Burton historians
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: want to dig into that, and that kind of cemented
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: the relationship. And Tim told us he said, I love Beetlejuice.
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: I would love to direct it, but I've got another project.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: That other project that there's a long development hell story
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: that can go with this, But that other that other
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: project finally fell through at a time when we really
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: needed someone like Tim to step up and rescue the
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: script from what what a very grueling and very counterproductive development.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Hell yeah, I was gonna a I was gonna ask
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: you about studio notes specifically with this, because it seems
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: like it is as far from a studio movie as
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen. How how crazy was the notes, because
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I can imagine people you know, in the studio system
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: just could not wrap their head around it.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you again without name names. And this
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: was not David Geffen himself.
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: When David Geffen became involved, why you say, it's like
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: unlike almost any studio movie. You can imagine it was
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: because he ran interference for us, and and of course
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: did it with all his cloud and all his brilliance.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: But we Michael McAll and I felt that we spent
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: a year ruining the script that all of that could
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: you know, it has so many like just if it
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: made Michael and I laugh or I felt right it
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: went into the script and you know, there's references to
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: psychedelic music, there's references to Mexican horror movies, there's references
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: to Tom and Jerry cartoons. I mean, it's just full
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: of all this weirdness. Didn't feel weird to us, but
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: we got into one of those situations with a development
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: executive who just tried to flatten everything that was quirky,
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: idiosymnocratic out of it, and we were pretty much at
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: the point feeling like we had ruined the script. When thankfully,
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: and again it's it's kind of a long complex story,
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: but when we were managed to say to Tim and
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: Tim's other project had fallen through.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: Would you want to step up and direct it? And
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: Tim said yes, but he said he essentially said I
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: want to do it if I can go back to
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: what the first draft was. So we caught this huge
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: break because you can imagine and and and yeah, and
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: Tim at that point he wasn't the Tim Burton yet.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: And and you know, Mike and I built the rocket
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: and you know, put it on the launching pad, but
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: Tim launched it to the moon. And of course his sensibility,
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: it's it's all there, and it was just this very
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: you know, it was one of those unique you know.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: And and and the thing about Tim and me at
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: that point was the things that we shared together. We
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: were like the drive in movies we'd gone to see,
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: you know, the Vincent Price movies, Corman movies, and and
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: you know, just just all this all this kind of
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: what was kind of at that point, as you'll remember,
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: like the kind of like this trash sensibility, you know.
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: And Tim very brilliantly said that we were the acceptable
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: edge of the unacceptable.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: Would be great, that's great line.
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: It is, right.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've always thought about that, and I've tried to
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: sort of live by that code, maybe sometimes to.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: My uh, you know, my commercial demise.
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: No that when when so yeah, yeah, that But that
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: Tim became involved and it kind of went back to
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: what the first draft had been, and then his sensibility
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: and it gelled into what beetle juice is.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And for people who I mean a lot of we
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: have a lot of younger audience members listening to this.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: If you guys haven't seen Beetle Juice, you gotta go
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: watch Beetle Juice. It is a triumph, a creative triumph,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: without question. But a lot of people forget it was
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: a pretty monster hit when it came out.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: It was.
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: And and yeah, please if you have if you haven't
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: seen it, it's everywhere.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: Well copies.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: And uh, you know so and that was another thing
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: that there were there were people at Warner Brothers marketing
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: executives particularly who hated the movie.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, they hated the movie and and.
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: You know, uh, they there there is a movement within
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: that that those people to change the title the house Ghost.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: That oh my god out you know, and.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: And just kind of dump it the way that because
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: they thought it was they just didn't get it. And
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: uh and that that the first weekend it came out,
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: which was actually really cool because you know, the Winona
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: Rita character, Lydia, which.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: You know, she's so great.
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, it's become like this iconic goth girl character.
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: That one that one, I mean, the initial vision of
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: her I will take credit for because I had gone
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: to hear another eighties reference.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: I'd gone to see the band The Cure.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you read in my mind, I'm like, he's going
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to say the Cure is it?
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I'd gone to see him at the
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: Rose Bowl, and I thought, and it felt like, in
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: a way, I was in an audience of like fifty
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: thousand teenage girls dressed in black, you know, and and
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: and uh so, so you cut to the opening weekend
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: of the movie, and I went the first night to
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: see it, and the audience was coming out, some people
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: loving it, some people hating it, which I actually thought
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: was really good now because we had wanted to write
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: something that was a definitive statement, not something that would
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: please everyone, and that was certainly Tim's gold too.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: And so.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: Then I went back on Saturday night to see it again,
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: and I saw all these girls, like these teenage girls
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: who had who had obviously seen it the first night,
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: gone into their closets the second night and come back
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: dressed like Lydia Deet's, you know, the Wenona Rioter character.
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: And that's when I knew, Okay, this thing is going
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: to take off. And it did, and it was a
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: huge you know, I mean surpassed everyone's expectations and continues
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: to do so. You know, it's amazing to me that
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: it's become this pop cult as that has become, but
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: it has.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: It's I remember, I mean I was I went to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the theater to see it and when I was in
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: high school, and it blew my mind because you'd never
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: seen anything like that before. And I think that pretty
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: much announced too. Tim Burton was really quickly and it
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: announced Tim in a huge way. And then obviously right
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: afterwards he got that little movie called Batman, uh, that
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: little thing that went out. But I'm always fascinated about
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: how studios. You know, you always hear these horror stories
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: of studio execs or just you know, development executives always
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: trying to get in the middle of ruining something.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: And I've heard other options too that they actually.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Do help sometimes. But with something like this, it's just
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: so outside the box. That's why I was amazed. And
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't know if if a movie like
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: this could get made intoday, I don't think it would
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: get made in Toda's studio system unless you had a
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: big gun like a Tim Burton or someone behind it.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: But in the eighties, it was a little bit more
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: wild wild West. Do you agree?
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: It was.
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: And I don't you know, because I've been a studio executive,
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: I don't want to. It's so easy to use that brush,
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: you know. Ain't them all that They're always a way
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: and they're always messing up your project and all of that,
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: and it's not necessarily true. And we had, you know,
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: we we did have fans and and uh within Warner
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: Brothers and and people.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: Who did get the movie, but there were there was,
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: but the main thing we had was David Geffen on our.
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: Side and a champion, yeahs as the champion of it.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: And there's a there's one more funny story that I'll
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: tell if that isn't going on too long. But uh So,
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: after this weekend where the film just succeeded everyone's expectations,
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: there was like a marketing meeting.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: That we were invited.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: To, and uh one of these marketing executives who had
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: been so passionately hated the film was having to confront
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: these weekend grosses and he said, well, at least we
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: got the Little Girls in Black to come in or
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: some line like that, right.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: And we walked out of the meeting Tim said, well,
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: who did you think we made it for? You know,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, so it was yeah, so it was.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: It was a film that divided everyone in the beginning,
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: and now everyone, including myself, will take credit for it
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: being you know, this pop classic now.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I mean Tim obviously got Batman afterwards, but you also
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: got another great gig right afterwards, which is Adam's Family.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, how was How was it?
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I mean bringing such a classic TV show to like
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: because I mean it's still being done today. Mean, for
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: God's six we got Chips coming out for some god
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: forsaken reason. But that you know, this whole turning TV
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: shows into yeah, I think it started in the late
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: eighties early nineties is when this this kind of.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Pattern started happening, correct, Yeah.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: And.
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: I got involved in the Adams Family and wrote with
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: my great partner and friend, Caroline Thompson. It was Scott
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: Ruden who brought us together, and Caroline and I sort
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: of had this writer's blind date at For those of
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: you who aren't in La, there's a very famous drive
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: through restaurant called Bob's Big Boy, and Caroline and I
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: met there and had a hamburger and decided we could
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: work together. And work on the Adams Family together. And
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: we were brought together by Scott and Scott Ruden. And
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: the thing that that people people always remember the TV
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: show as the origin, but the actual origin were these
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: comic New Yorker cartoons by Adams, and that sort of
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: animated our sensibility of it or brought we we of
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: course we referred to the TV show, uh and you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: borrowed characters from a particularly thing the hand, you know,
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: but it was really the Charles.
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: Adams uh uh.
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: New Yorker cartoons aesthetic that we really tried to uh
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: really tried to emulate. And uh yeah, I mean I'm
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: sure there was another uh uh you know at that point,
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: uh taking a you know, a TV show and and
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: and rewriting it into a film, but we were definitely
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: one of the first and started that that trend.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: For better or for worse.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, I can't.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there are good TV shows that
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I mean there are, but I just can't remember. Like
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Charlie's Angels, I guess the first one was a lot
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: of fun. But anyway, we can, we can go on
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and on. But Adams Family, actually, I really enjoyed Adams Family.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Was it was. It was a monster hit too. It
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: was another another grand slam h when.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: It came out, Yeah, it was. It was a huge hit.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: And it was Barry. Was that Barry Sonofil's first directorial movie.
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: Yes, it was, and he had you know, he had
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: and the cinematographer for the Coen Brothers, and it was
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: his uh first uh directing a feature directing gig and
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: and again there were a couple of of of executive
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: suits who were very suspicious.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Of him stepping up and doing it. But of course, you.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Know he's done okay with himself, the men in blacks,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: and you.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: Know, and and again it was someone who had a
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: brilliant sort of idiosymocratic vision and took what we had
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: done and you know, brought it to life in just
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: an incredible way.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: No, real quick I had to ask I forgot to
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: ask one question about Beatle Juice.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And now back to the show.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Is it Beetle Juice or beetle geis? Why?
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: What's the difference?
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: Because I know, as I remember that day, the Beatle
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: guy being the constellation and it was Michael McDowell who
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: who came up with.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: With the punt.
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: I don't know if it's a pun exactly, but the
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: idea of that we would take Beetle Guys but pronounce
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: it beatle juice, and then we changed it to beetle
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: juice as like the juice of a beetle.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: Which was another thing that a lot of people hated,
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: was you know.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: The name, but in the actual movie it's the title
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: is beatle Geist. If I'm not mistaken, and that beatles, well,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: it might have changed.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: No, the title is Beetle Juice.
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: G U I c Yeah, there were some beetle guys
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: references are very early on it. I don't remember exactly,
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: but thank god it wasn't called house Ghost, which.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: That's at the end of the day, we're all grateful
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: for not being called house Ghost. Now, do you have
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: any advice from how and this this actually is a
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: good question because you're on both sides of the fence here,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: any advice on how to deal with studio or producers
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: notes as a writer?
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it is it?
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: Well, yes, I do, and I'm just I'm just taking
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: a breath here because I want to say this succinctly
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: because it's it's a subject. I could go on about it.
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: There there there's a there's a dance involved in it,
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: There's no doubt about it. If you are that that
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: young writer out there who it sells his or her
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: first script to a studio, be prepared to uh write
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: many drafts, get a lot of notes and uh and
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: and deal with it accordingly. And accordingly to me means
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: you need to be respectful of the process, or don't
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: sell them the script, you know, become a DIY director,
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: which is of course doable now you're doing you know,
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: I mean, if it's just your vision or no vision,
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: uh do it yourself, you know, which was not an option,
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: particularly in the eighties, in the way that it is now.
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: But but there's a but there's a dance involved in
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: working with studio executives, and you do need to think
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: a little bit about well, first of all, you have
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: to be open uh and and and and don't assume
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: that someone an executive won't have anything smart to say
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: or good to say to you. And don't take all
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: of these uh studio executive horror stories uh so seriously
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: that you aren't willing to listen and often you will
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: get notes that will make your script better.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: But you do also have to have.
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: Kind of an internal courage and a resolve that there
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: are things that you will say no to UH, and
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: you can you can say no respectfully, you can say it.
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: You can say it UH in the context of realizing
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: that that you're you're working with a team of people
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: who are hopefully trying to make the best movie or
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: TV show possible. But you have to know what you
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: can well, you have to be open to listening and
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: maybe there's a better idea. It's a collaborative medium to
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: use that horrible good cliche. But within that that dance,
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: you also have to have things that you just absolutely
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: say no, that that that so destroys the vision, that
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: so destroys the essence of what we're trying to do,
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: that that we can't go there. And it's you know,
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: it's not for the fine of heart, is it, Alex.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: No, it's not.
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know, and.
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: I've and I say this after you know, decades of experience,
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: but doing this. I've got a new animated film coming
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: out October. This was this year Halloween twenty seventeen. It's
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: an animated version of the Little Vampire very cool, the
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: action version. Yeah, and that you know, my my my
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: producing partner and writing partner, Richard Klaus, we.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: Have we uh. We go back and forth. Uh. Sometimes
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: it feels endlessly on scenes.
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: But at the end of the day, I know he
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: has the best interest of the film at heart, and
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: I do too. But there's things he said, he said
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: to me, absolutely no, this isn't what we're doing.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: And there's things I've said to him.
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: And then there are things where you say, Okay, no,
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: you have a better idea, or let's try it at least,
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: and it's you gotta you gotta have. You got to
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: have some if you're going to play that studio game. Uh,
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: and I don't want to game is too light of
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: a term for it. You're going to make your movie
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: through a conventional movie studio process. You got to be
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: willing to play that. We'll call it a game, or
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: call it a dance. You got to be willing to
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: play the game or.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: Do the dance. You and and and and do it,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: do it intelligently, and and and again.
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: It's being open to good notes, but be but then
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: having the sort of the intestinal fortitude, the guts to
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: say no, I can't do that.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: It doesn't work.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Right until until you know, you become James Cameron that
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: you just tell them no, it's not going to happen,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: and it's gonna happen.
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: This way, you know.
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: And and it's so funny because if you look at
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: like Caroline Thompson, my you know who, my Adam Sanley
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: Wright partner, you know, has written so many brilliant films
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: from Edward says her hands. I just watched The Corps
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: Bride again last nights ago. I mean, I could go
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: on and on with her credits. But but she said,
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: she says, sometimes if we ever think about collaborating together,
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: she'll say, don't you think at this point we should
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: be able to walk into one of these executives' office
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: offices and say, here, here's our resume, here's what we've done.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: Can you please just let us do it and leave
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: us alone? Right?
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: But I mean, but it's just a joke because it
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: never happens that way. If you're working for a studio,
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: you're gonna get notes, you're gonna you're going to be
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: in that playing that game or doing that dance.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And but like, but can you can I I'm trying
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: to think of a writer who has that kind of power.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: There's very few.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: I mean Tarantino obviously, but he's a director, But like
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: who as a writer and just a writer, not a
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: director has that kind of power. Because there are directors
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: who do have that power. Uh, there's very few, but
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: there are that can kind of do what they want, uh,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: depending on the budget, of course, you know, but like
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Woody Allen does what he wants when he wants, but
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: he also keeps the budgets at a very low I'd
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: say the Coen Brothers another group that these guys just
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: literally do whatever they want, and I don't think they
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: get a lot of studio thos.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: But are there any writers do you think?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's obviously some very monster writers out there,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: who you know, who are you know, at the upper echelon,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: if you will, of writing, But do.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: They have that kind of power anymore? Is there anyone
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: like that?
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: I you know, I mean, wow, that that would be
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: a list of what like wo three people right exactly.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: It's a very small.
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: There's I consider myself, depending on on the on the
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: arc of my career, I guess a list down to
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: a minus list. You know, I'm I am well respected
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: at this point and sure Will Will Will will.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: Listen to me.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Uh but when, but when Stephen?
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: Is that a plus list that maybe Aaron Sorkin, But
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: you know, but they're to a director, I mean, if
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: you want to if you want to do it yourself,
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: you got you know, really do it. And and it's
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: your vision and all of that. Because of the names
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: that you listed, the Cohen Brothers, Tarantino, of course, they're
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: they're they're brilliant directors and and and and they're the
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: and and they have both those things going. Uh, screenwriters
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: not so much.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: And that's that's the cliche of like, oh the screenwriters
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: never never never get never, never get the respect that
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: they deserve, because I mean, without the without the word,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: there's nothing.
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and and and that's that's another one of those
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: things that that that's a truth that can be untrue.
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: I I sometimes, you know, because I'm I'm heading into
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: uh my god, I'm knocking wood here, Alex. You know,
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: I mean like a thirty year run of you know,
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: great years, not so good years, pretty good years.
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: Blah blah blah.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: But you know, I've made my living as a writer
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: now for over thirty years, which is like kind of insane.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: It really it is. It is a miracle, honestly.
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's yeah, and I'm very I'm very aware of
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: it and have a new film coming out this year.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: Is like it's like a really brilliant thing.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: But but you know, am I can I It's like
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: I was saying with Caroline, can I walk in a
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: room and saying this is what I want to do
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: and this is how I'm going to do it, and
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: look at you know, if you want the you know,
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: everyone wants the new Beetle Juice until you think you've
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: given it to them.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: Then they get scared. I mean in the studios.
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: And and it's and screenwriting, you're not going to be.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: Maybe again, maybe we could come up with a list
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: of three people, four people.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: But even then those you're.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: Right, you're not going to be that where it's you
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: and it's you and everyone, you're not.
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: Going to be.
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: They don't they don't celebrate the screenwriters too much, do
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: they not really?
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: And even those guys that are on that list, you're right.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: They do have to answer to a director eventually, and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you know, unless they're both the same person that the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: screenwriter is. I mean, there are some that have a
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: little bit more clout and obviously a little bit bit
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: more muscle, but even then at the end of the day,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: it all depends and if they're working at that high
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: level of budget, we'll be right back after a word
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: from our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: Generally speaking, the director that they bring on is going
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: to probably be at that high level as well. That's
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: why I.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Wonder, like I always tell people, like, you know, I
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: have such a great respect for James Cameron, because he
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: really is probably the only guy on the planet who
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: could have done Avatar the way he did it, Like
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: not even I mean Spielberg was you know, in hand
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: for Lincoln for years and like it's Stephen freakin' Spielberg, yes,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: you know, like and Martin Scorsese he was trying to
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: get Silence done for twenty years, Like he's Martin Scorcese.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: So you know, so it really is, you.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Know, it's a very small crowd that can kind of
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: work in the studio. So I mean, Chris Nolan right
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: now is probably one of those guys who could pretty much,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: you know, even David Fincher can't, you know, and he's
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: David freaking Fincher.
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I had Jim Mooles on and we were talking about
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: fight Club and the battles that they had with fight
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Club and and all that stuff. Not him in the Fincher,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: but the studios a very similar thing. They they just
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: didn't get it. Like it's same thing with Beetle just
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: they just didn't get it. And it's now because a.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Masterpiece, it's considered a masterpiece. So with them.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: So you also worked a bit on TV with Tales
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: in the Crypt. How how does your work differ when
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: you're writing for television versus writing for future films.
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, tell Us from the Crypt, which I
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: understand is being revived, was like just one of the
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: great anthology shows of all times. Oh yeah, I feel
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: very blessed. I wrote six episodes. I wrote and directed
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: an episode. It was my first directing gig that I
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: still remain really proud of. And it was it was
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: like just one of the best run shows.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: Imaginable it was.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: And the showrunner's name was Gil Adler and he I
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: got to know Gil personally after The Crypt was kind
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: of winding down, and he was.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: Two different people. He could be very He was a
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: very nice man. Actually, I'm sure it's still is a
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: very nice man.
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: I'm seeing him in a while offset But on set
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: and during the making of that show, he could be
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: really intimidating if he chose to be. And I always
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: considered it. You know, it spoke well of me that
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: I got invited back every season of the show to
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: do an episode. But the thing about it was, I mean,
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: I'll just start writ at the beginning that scripts had
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: to be twenty one pages.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: They could not be twenty two pages.
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: They could not be twenty pages, they had to be
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: twenty one pages.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: So you had to really learn to write that succinctly.
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: And if I did it, my sin probably every season
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: was that my first script, first draft, would be you know,
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: too long by a couple of pages. And I would
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: say to Gil, well can I have an X page?
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: And I always be no twenty one page? You know,
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: I mean, which is like, and you know this whole
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: flash story movement that you may be aware of, you know,
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: where you write like a hundred word story and or
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: a fifteen hundred word story.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: I'd love that and it.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: Can you tell me a little bit more? I don't
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: know about that. Can you tell me a little bit
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: about that.
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: There's a literary movement out there.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: I guess you'd call it called a flash writing, and
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: it's the idea of writing a short story with a
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: very specific number of words that you have to tell
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: your story.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: I came across this.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: There's a horror writer named David Lake who published an
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: anthology book of one hundred word stories, and I read
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: a few of them and I went, wow, this is
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: so cool. It's because it's such a great piece of discipline.
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: And then I started to explore it and it's actually
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: like it's like a literary movement, you know.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: And I mean, and.
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: There's there's Twitter stories where you have to write a
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: story with how I forget how many characters you have
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: with your Twitter feed?
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: One hundred and forty characters.
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there, you know, there's a hundred word story.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: There's a fifteen hundred.
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: Word story, and it's just the idea, how much can
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: you convey and how good of a story can you
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: tell with this very you know, within this very limited
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: frame of just a certain number of words. And I
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: sat down after reading a few of the hundred word
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: stories and wrote my own hundred word hord story and
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: I went, oh, wow, you know it actually because it
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: was you know, it was probably like one hundred and
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: fifty words when I finished the first draft, and then
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: you know, cut it out, cut it out, cut it out.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: Could I kept kept cutting until it was exactly a
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: hundred words, and it was amazing to see. And I'm
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: sure you can relate to this as a filmmaker about
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: how much you can cut and how many things that
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: may seem precious to you cut them away and you
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: can still convey the essence of the story.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: And that was very true on Tales from the Crypt.
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: Like I said, we had twenty one pages to tell
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: a story, and everyone was a miniature movie. There were
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: no repeating characters, there was no you know, everyone is
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: very different from the next. And it was an incredible
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: bit of writing discipline for me. It was it was
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: it was incredible to have to tell the best story
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: possible and within that limited frame of you know, I
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: guess that would be twenty one minutes, you know, and
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: and that was you know, I I've never done a
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: series television, I because I think I think too much beginning,
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: middles and ends. That's not a bad thing, but that's
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: the way my brain works. But but I guarantee that
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: one of the disciplines of TV, even in this you know,
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: this great era where in now you know where you
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: can do you know, like the Breaking Bad, you know,
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: four Seasons, story art all that, but the essence is
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: still economy.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I think in television it's a great discipline, that concept
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: of flash writing. It's a great discipline for writers. Any
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: writers listening out there, try to do that because it's wonderful.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Alex, it is.
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: And it's something that that I just really came across
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: a very short time ago, and I love it. And
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: I know we're going to get around to talking about
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: some of the workshops and stuff, but it's something I'm
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: going to utilize within those workshops because I just think
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: it's an incredible It's like the perfect discipline for a
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: screenwriter who's taking a day off from screenwriting but still
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: wants to get there, you know, their writing muscles exercise
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: that day.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: This idea of a hundred.
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: Words short story, because it's a very cinematic way to
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: tell a story. You have to do it with very
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: key images and just those moments that really can convey
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: what you try to convey.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's basically a workout for your writing muscle,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: really is, because you have to do it within this framework.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: And it's a great discipline to carry on.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: With all your writing. Yeah, So it doesn't get so
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: because sometimes writing gets away from.
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: You, Yes it does. Yeah, And uh, my first drafts
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: are always over long.
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: And then they go into the digital drawer now for
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: a while, and I go back to them, and I
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: always realize that in your first draft. A lot of
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: why why they're you know, my drafts are probably like
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: twenty pages too long, is I'm still explaining the story
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: to myself.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: In that draft, you know.
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: And uh, and then and you'll cut things away that
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: you will think, oh, I can't lose that, but then.
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: You you you lose it.
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: And most often you don't miss it. And of course,
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: if you know that's the miracle of the computer. Uh,
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: you can, you can. You can cut it.
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: Then you can undo the cut and put it back.
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: But I know I'd like to.
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: Be relentless with my first draft after I've written it
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: and put it away for a few weeks and just
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: cut it to death and see where it stands now.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: And and uh, you're talking about Tales with the Crypto
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: actually bringing back the very Amazing Stories.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: Did you hear that?
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: Oh no, I hadn't heard about that one. I forget
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: who it is his bringing his bringing Tales from the
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: Crypt back.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: I should probably go knock on their door.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: You should, you absolutely should.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But Amazing Amazing Stories was one of those shows
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: from the eighties too. I mean, I think there's a
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: lot of anthology. Pathology is starting to be a little
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: bit in vogue now and they're starting to bring them
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: all back.
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: I'm so glad. It's great.
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's It's and the right, the right show,
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: and a show that was run as well as The.
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: Tales from the Crypt was run.
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: It was it was a chance to write a movie
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: in miniature and also be you know, I always said,
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: you know, it was my chance to be sort of
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: like a you know, like like if I had a
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: heavy metal aesthetic in me. That was the crypt You know,
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: I could be dark and disturbing and spew a lot
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: of venom, which is awesome.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you get Yeah, you get to play in a
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: place that you might not want to invest in the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: entire feature film or try to get a feature film
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: off the ground, but for a twenty one minute piece,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Like you know, I really have always wanted to play
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: with this idea, so let me just throw it into
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: this short and and it's basically a short. And I
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: think in today's world that's why anthologies are starting to
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: come back, because the attention span for a lot of
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: younger generation is it works as an anthology as opposed
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: to the longer formats as well. But I wanted to
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: ask you something, what are your tips? Do you have
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: any tips that you can share about writing horror and
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: fantasy since you've done it so often in your life.
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so. And and.
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: The big tip about it is look horror particularly, you know,
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: but we all now can go to a you know,
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: a multiplex fantasy movie or a multiplexed comic book movie,
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: which is essentially, you know, it's a fantasy movie.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: Hm uh.
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: And you see the trailers preceding the movie, and they
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: and they all they all bleed in where they feel
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: like it's the same movie, you know, like you see
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: six versions of the same movie and the trailers and
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: then you see the movie and it's the same movie,
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: so uh, and and and but horror particularly, uh, it
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: runs in cycles. Someone will do you know something like
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: paranormal activities. Uh, you know that there's sort of this
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: ground breaking film in terms of you know, how it
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: was shot, the budget that was shot on and all
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: of that, and then it will be eated, ripped off
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: in you know, and and beaten to death and and and.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: And so how do you how do you be original? Uh?
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: Within the context of shots are in a sense they
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: are based on repetition. There's only so many ways to
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: scare people. Uh. And the thing that I try to
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: teach people and say to people about it is you
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: need to be personal. Uh, you need to really I think,
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: to really be scary. Uh, you need to go inside
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: yourself and find that piece of darkness that and I
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: don't consider myself a dark person by any means. You know,
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: I consider horror a nice place to visit. I wouldn't
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: want to live there, you know, in my life obviously.
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: But but you got to kind.
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: Of go inside and find that thing that just scares
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: you to death, scares you to death, and start there.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: And that's where you're going to find a voice.
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: And and and that's where you're going to find originality,
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: uh bye bye by taking a genre that too often
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: again once once you know, whatever the horror movie dazure is,
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: it will be ripped off endlessly and usually you know, uh,
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: a rapidly declining way. But if you be personal, and
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: if you can just really really look inside yourself and say,
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: what what's my darkest impulse or what is the thing
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: that scares me to death and start there, then you
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: have something to build on, and then you have something
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: that that that has a chance of having some originality.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a very very good point.
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: And you know, and just quickly to go back to
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: tales and tales from the trip, you know, they were
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: all based on these nineteen fifties horror comic stories. You
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: kind of took the premise of the story that wrote
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: something new around it. But I can look at all
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: of my episodes now and without going into you know,
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: the family psychodrama or any of that, I can see
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: exactly where they came from and feel myself within them,
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: even though they were based on another story. And and
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: you know, a comic book story, and of course you
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: know it was you know, an anthology of I forget
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: how many episodes per season.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: But I can look at all.
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: Of those episodes and see some of my worst fears
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: in some of my I guess you'd say, within those stories.
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: And I'm proud of that.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: Now, can you?
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: And I think this is a really important point to
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: kind of stress to the audience. Can you agree with
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: me that all good art, and specifically art in the
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: in the scope that we're talking about, which is filmmaking
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: and screenwriting, the audiences really connect with truth of some sort,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: whether that be the truth of you like you just said,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: it scares the hell out of me, Go scare the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: hell out of me. So I'm gonna make paranormal activity.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: And there's that that that the essence of truth from
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: the filmmaker themselves or from the writer themselves, and that's
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: what people connect to you or some sort of truth
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: within the zeitgeist of the world.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: But truth is what we look for. Do you agree
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: in that sense?
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: I completely agree, And it's I suppose it could be
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: very very easy to be cynical about how much truth
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: there is, uh in in you know, the the Hollywood blockbuster,
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: the you know that two hundred three hundred million dollar movie,
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: but the ones that that really work and that really uh,
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: I think step out of the pack. They do speak
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: to They speak a truth and and and a truth
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: that uh that that that that just grabs you by
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: the throat and you want to go back to it
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: and you can go to something. Yeah, we can talk
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: about the scary, that scary, dark truth. But Harry Potter
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: is full of truth, you know, truth and and and that.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: I mean I speak to a worldwide audience and and
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: particularly a young audience in a very profound way. And
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: and I I think if you go back and and
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: and read the first book, you and you understand that
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: that came from a very personal space and and uh,
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: she was.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: On welfare, is sitting in the back of a car.
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: So we're writing it exactly, you know, and and and
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: it and it's you know it that that truth is
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: within that story and and and those aspirations of breaking
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: out of that that cycle of you know, despair and poverty.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: And and all of that.
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: And and you know what if you if you're gonna,
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: if you're going to do this gig is screenwriters, yet
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: you better have something to say, uh, and and people,
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: you know, yeah, you'll get going back to the development
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: part of it. You'll have people who will try to
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: beat that truth out of it sometimes and that's when
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: you when when you really have to put down your
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: foot and say no that. And that's what I was
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: talking about, destroying the essence of it. You just really
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: summed it up better than I did, Alex. If they're
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: destroying the truth of it. And I've always written, you know,
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: I didn't know I had a theme until I had
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: enough work where I could say, oh, my work has
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: a theme. For them was part and for me, it's about,
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: you know, families that have fallen apart who are brought.
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: Back together in some very bizarre way.
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: Uh And and and that that comes from from from
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: a place within me. And it's something that when I
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: when I start thinking story, it's sort of naturally where
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: I go. And and I I feel sorry for young
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: writers out there who are just trying to emulate Dark
• 54:27
  Speaker 5: Night or or whatever, you know, what what whatever it
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: is that that that they've watched it so many times
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: that they think they can write that without having their
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: own that without having their own truth within them.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing that I've said this many times
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: on the show, is that you know, when you try
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: to emulate as a director or a screenwriter, like I'm
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: going to be the next Quentin Tarantina.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: Like we don't need another Quentin Tarantino. We've got a
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: Quin Tarantine And I guarantee you Quentin does it much
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: better than you'll ever do it. Yeah, you know, and
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: to be original.
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know you're talking about James Cameron earlier.
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: And my last development job was I was I was
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: working for Walter Hill and I was tasked with the
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: job of finding a writer for the Alien sequel, which
• 55:13
  Speaker 5: of course became Aliens.
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: And I met Jim Cameron at my office.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: And that was right after Terminator, so he was yeah, and.
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: I don't even think, as I remember it, at least,
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: I don't think Terminator or even been released yet.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: But I got ahold of the script.
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: And this was not some brilliant call on my part,
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: because if you read the script Terminator at that point
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: and you couldn't see that this guy was going to
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: become the Jim Cameron, you didn't deserve the job that
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: I had. And you know, he came and met me
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: in my office and at that time, this will put
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: this back into the eighties, he was working on a
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: movie called New Year's Eve nineteen ninety nine, and he
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: brought all this brilliant conceptual art. Uh and uh and
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: and talked about it so passionately. And I'd read Terminator
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: and I went to Walter Hill and I said, okay,
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: I found our writer. And of course Jim became the
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: writer and director. And I went through a lot of
• 56:12
  Speaker 5: development meetings at Fox in the room with Jim and
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: some studio executives over there, and yeah, you talk about
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: a guy who knew what he wanted to do and
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: knew how he wanted to do it and knew how.
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: To say no. And that was James Cameron.
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: And uh, and I'm I'm in terms of my development life,
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: that's my proudest achievement was it was connecting James to
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: to a you know, the Alien sequel in the early stages.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: And that's still arguably it's my favorite. I think of
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: the Alien of the Alien movies, and it's just I mean,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: and we could we could talk for hours just on James,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: but uh, it's pretty remarkable that, you know, I personally
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: don't think he's made a bad movie in his career
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: other than maybe Purana the Spawning.
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: But that's what I had to show people to begin
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: I think there was no Terminator yet.
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: Because there was no you know, there there was no terminator.
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: I had Piranha, Roger Corvin Senior. This guy is the
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: next big deal here. Look at Paranha.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: No no, no, no, Piranha to the spotting, not even
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the original Piranha.
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: But you know.
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: But but again, if if you, if you, if you're
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: Red Terminator and you met him, oh boy, you just
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: you had to know, you.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: Know, right exactly.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: So now I hear that you're giving workshops now on screenwriting.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about the kind
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: of workshops you're given.
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I'm I'm I'm I've taught for over twenty
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: five years.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna I'm gonna say something that's going to come
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: off a bit snotty, maybe, Alex sure, but maybe what
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: separates me out from a lot of screenwriting teachers out
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: there is is that I'm still a working screenwriter, and
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: that you know, I've been in the trenches for all
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: these years, and I've had experiences on both sides of
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: the desk. I've been a studio executive. I've been a
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: screenwriter dealing with studio executives, and I've done all my teaching,
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: well not all of my teaching by any means, but
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: the majority of my teaching at UCLA Extension. And I
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: taught a class at UCLA Extension a couple of semesters ago,
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: a few semesters ago, and I just kind of realized
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: that I wanted to step out of that curriculum and
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: do it on my own.
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: And so I have started.
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: And here's the website everyone, Larry Wilson's Screenwriting Workshop, and
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: the first two workshops I'm going to do are horror
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: fantasy writing. Their call the Method the Madness. They're at
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: Larry Wilson's Screenwriting Workshop right now. They're going to happen
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: in la April eighth and ninth, I believe, and then
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: another weekend in April. If you go on the website,
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: you can check them out. And I definitely my career
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: has in terms of my work, has been primarily in
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: the dark comedy, horror fantasy world. And I'm going to
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: get and I'm going to do my first two weekend
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: workshops on horror fantasy writing and then but I'm also
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: going to be consulting with you know, I just I
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: think because of just this sort of this life of
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: experience I've had. Now, you know, it's like very weird
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: to wake up and you've been doing something for thirty years,
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: and the fact that I have, I've kind of done
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: it in a lot of different ways. I just think
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: I have a unique enough perspective and a fresh enough
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: perspective to bring something to aspiring writers in terms of
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: consultations or in terms of my workshops and all of that.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: Uh that that, and I wouldn't be doing it if
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: I didn't think I could.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: It's it's a matter of the truth again, because you
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: don't get rich teaching at u c L a extension,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: and there have been a lot of years I've taught
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: there where I didn't even need the money. Was wasn't
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: an issue whatsoever, you know. I mean, but I've just
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: always loved teaching and and I've loved exploring, you know,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: moving writers, you know, and and it's it's that when
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 5: you find that writer in your classroom where you go, Wow,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: this person can actually do this.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: That's just that's just a brilliant moment.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: And so uh, there's a truth to my teaching too,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: and a passion to really help people, you know, uh,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: get their script, get their script finished.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: For one thing, Oh my gosh, I help you know
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: this all?
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, the screenwriter who's been working on the screenplay for
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: seven years, that guy that.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: And the thing that I always say to people, and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: I make up the number in the beginning just to
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: sort of what I think fits the room. I will
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: sometimes say ninety eight percent of you are going to fail.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: And they're like, oh, I say, but you'll fail because
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: you'll never finish your script right and and and and
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: and that's that's a sad truth that I've I've confronted
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: many many times in my teaching career. And and I'm
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: oh my god, please God shoot me if I say
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: I'm a motivational screenwriting.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: Coach, but I'll just call you Tony Robbins.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but but I do because you know, look, I
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: went through a very severe case of writer's block. I had.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: I had a like I say, a door to walk through, uh,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: to become a studio executive is and do that that
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: job for a few years. Realized I wanted to write again.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: But I understand the fears of it, you know, and
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: and and for me it was I barely had a
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: high school education, and I thought being a writer was
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: you had to have, you know, gone to college and
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: get a degree.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: All this stuff. That's of course absolute nonsense.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: Uh uh And and I and I think so, I
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 5: think I'm going to be good for the writers who
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: want to work with me in terms of that just
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: getting your script finished.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, finish already.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: And so you know, the Horran fantasy workshops would be
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: based on sort of a wealth of experience and a
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: love for the genres and a passion for the genres.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: You know, it's I can geek out on them.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: But also you know the practical side of it, and yes,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: a motivational side of it.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: Finish your script, kids, yes, exactly now. And I'll put
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: all that information in the show notes for everybody listening,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: so you can go right there and get links to everything.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: Awesome, thank you.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Now, what advice would you give a screenwriter just starting
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: out besides finishing.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: Sc Yeah, besides say which is like the I I've
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: given away.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: My workshow.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: That's it?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: That that's that's that is the biggest one. But of
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: course the thing that has changed so dramatically since you
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: were working in a video store and I was, you know.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: Uh, screenwriting beetlejuice.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: Screenwriting career is y and I know and and I
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: love I love your site, thank you. I love the
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: resources that that that that you bring to people.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: Uh, because.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: There it used to be very very very hard to
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: get a movie made.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: Uh, if only because film stock was so expected.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: Just that alone, and the cameras.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and and yes, and and and and and and
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: the rentals and all of the you know, and and
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: if there's and and now to state the obvious that
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: no longer is the case. And I am going to
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: be doing a lot of di y preaching within my
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: workshops too, and particularly I I I heard I'm going
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: to forget the filmmaker's name now, but he's making really
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: kind of you know, balls of the Wall, pretty good
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: horror movies for like five thousand dollars that he's crowdfunding,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: and and uh that that story is out there in
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: lots of different places now.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: And he said something that I thought was so smart.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: He said, I think that that for the budgets I
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: work on and the limitations I work on, you can
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: do a good drama, right, you can do a oh god, yeah,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: a good drama. You can do a good horror movie.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: I mean you absolutely can, absolutely.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: And so there's there's no excuse left if you really
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: if you really want to do this and and you
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: really want to make something, there's no excuse left. You
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: can do it for five thousand dollars.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: I know you had to. I forget. I'm sorry, I'm
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: forgetting his name right now.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: You had a conversation on your podcast just maybe it's
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: the most recent one with someone who made a movie
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: for five hundred dollars.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I had a couple of them for five hundred.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: I had Josh Colwell who did his feature film for
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: six thousand, which was all at night in La. You know,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: it's there's there's absolutely no excuse. And I just did
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: my movie This is Meg, for a humble budget under
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: twenty five million. As soon as my audit's done, I
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: released the budget.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: But under twenty five million right now.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: Under twenty five million, for sure. But there's no excuse.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: And my audiences, I've heard they're exhausted of me telling
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: them this. But I'm glad that someone like you of
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: your caliber is saying the exact same thing. And as
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: a screenwriter, I think do you agree that at this
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: point in the game, as a screenwriter, young screenwriter starting out,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: instead of trying to I mean, there are that you
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: could obviously submit. You could obviously try to get into
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: the studio system, but that is a much more competitive
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: world than writing your own stuff, teaming up with a
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: director or production. Uh, you know, to do a small
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: five thousand dollars movie.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: Or do it yourself.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: Literally just go out and shoot it yourself and find
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: people that can support you, especially if you live in
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: la for God's sakes, but you can do it anywhere
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: in the country or anywhere in the world for that matter.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: Would you agree with that?
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: I totally agree with it.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: And you know that that this this these workshops, the
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: l A workshops. Sign up now, kids, because they may
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: be the last ones I do in the.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: US for a while.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: Because I'm I'm my my lovely new wife of about
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: eight months now.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: Congratulations.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: We're moving to the Netherlands over the.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: Summer, are you That's awesome?
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we're moving to Amsterdam or Rotterdam for good or
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: just for the summer, go well, for who knows.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: Uh, you know, we'll see what life brings. Uh. But
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: where where it feels like it's going to be for good?
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 5: Uh whatever for good means uh uh but uh, I'm
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 5: hoping to be uh speaking to an international audience very soon.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 5: And you can do it anywhere in the world. And
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 5: and uh it's and I I sort of too think
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: that you know that that that maybe as a young writer,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: you can have a two pronged approach, have that project
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 5: that you you know, your your your big studio movie
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 5: and and and uh and and write that spec script
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: that is the one that you hope you'll sell, you know,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: that million dollars sale.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: Uh. And and you know it can be that big
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: budget movie.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 5: But never let go of this really compelling fact that
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 5: if that isn't happening, or that script gets stuck somewhere,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 5: that you can turn around and you can do a movie.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 5: You can borrow the money from your parents if you're
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's fine.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: A thousand bucks, two thousand bucks, five thousand bucks, you.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: Know, but and and it's, oh my god, the sense.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: Of liberation and relief in that is so huge.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: I you know, I've.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: Because I I'm going there myself and and and starting
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: to do some DIY work because I just because I
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: get I get very bored by how.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: Long it takes to get something the studio.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: And I'm I, you know, and I'm writing screenplays and
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: there is no more useless document than a screenplay that's unproduced,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: you know, doorstop right, So I I it's something that
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: that I'm exploring for myself at this point, and it's
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 5: just a great sense of freedom and liberation and fun.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll tell you when I made my I
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: just finished my first feature with that same that same spirit,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: and it is the most fun production I've ever been on.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: And I've done a ton of stuff in my career
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: as a director, but it was so freeing. I answered
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: to no one, I you know, for better or worse.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: People like it or don't like it, it's on me,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's wonderful though.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: It was the most freeing creative experience of my life.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: And now I'm addicted to it.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, Alex, I hear you and and me too.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: And it's uh that that that uh my my workshop
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: students are going to get an earfull about d I
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: y because I think I just think it's it's it's
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: a it's a brand new it's a brand new era
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: of filmmaking and uh and and it it's probably the
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 5: best thing that's happened in movies, uh in decades.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: Absolute.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: Now I'm going to ask you three questions. I ask
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: all of my guests. Yes, what is the lesson that
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: took you the longest to learn, whether in the film
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: business or in life.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: Not to get my feelings hurt?
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: Okay, good answer, because I probably if you're a writer,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: if you're an artist, you have a certain amount of sensitivity.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: And working ei Y or working in Hollywood is not
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: for the faint of heart and skinned. And I had
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: to develop a thicker skin and not get my feelings
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: hurt and not realize it's all personal.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: I did a screen Junkies interview reasons.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: I love by the way. I love screen Junkies, absolutely
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: love what they do.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: It's pretty cool and very short story, I promise, uh
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: uh and uh you know, and it was it was
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: about the Adams family and and Spencer. The host asked,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: you know, because there were Twitter questions coming in. Well,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: Adam's family values the sequel, Uh, what do you think
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 5: of it? And I said to Spencer, honestly, I never
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: saw it. Really, I wasn't asked back, you know, I
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: mean for a lot of reasons. But I mean, that's
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: that's thin skin, dude.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's ye know, yeah.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, and I and and so not getting my
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: feelings hurt, That's that's the answer to that question. And
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 5: and and realizing that uh uh, that that these things
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 5: are very seldom personal notes or or or or rebellions
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 5: on the set and all of that.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: They can't they can be personally, I guess.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: But I I just I just and at this point,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 5: I just I'm kind of able to laugh about it.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: That does take time to build up that skin, Yeah,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: it does.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: It taken me a few years. So what are three
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: of your favorite films of all time?
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: Can I? Can?
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: I can?
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 5: I start with like my favorite film of all times,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 5: my absolute favorite film, and that is animated in some
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 5: way animated in the sense of brought life to all
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 5: of my work. And it's the Bride of Frankenstein.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: Oh, such a great movie.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 5: You know, it's the nineteen thirty six sequel to Frankenstein.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: It is, And I had the great joy of seeing
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 5: it on a big screen a couple of years ago.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: If you haven't seen it, it is it is both
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 5: a dark fairy tale, a christ parable, a horror movie,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: over the top melodrama, and that film I love and
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 5: and just remain absolutely absolutely passionate about a film that.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 5: So that's that's probably number one on my and I
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: I think that that, uh, Silence of the Lambs had
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 5: a huge impact.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: On this such an amazing movie.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 5: And and I I was in my last I was
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 5: in my last days as a script reader, which I
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 5: was for many years. I was also a story analyst,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: a union story analyst. I worked at every studio in town.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 5: And one of my last days as a story analyst,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 5: I read the galleys to the book Silence of the Lambs,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 5: and and and and it was I I actually wrote
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 5: in you know, the comments of my coverage, I said,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 5: if done right, this can win an Academy Award. And
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 5: I'm very you called it, Yeah, I called it, you know,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 5: and I just think I just think it's it's the
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 5: most extraordinary. Uh uh uh, it's it's Is it a thriller?
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 5: Is it a horror movie as a police procedural or
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 5: is a philosophical statement.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 4: I think it's all of those things.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's Brida Frankenstein Silence of the Lambs. And I
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: want to think of something recently that I saw that
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 5: that that just really you know, because because I could
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 5: go on and and.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: It's about foreign films, indie film studio.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 5: Films, bah blah blah blah blah, but I but I think,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 5: just to bring it back to horror, the movie that
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 5: really just in the last few years, just really really
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: just I fell in love with.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: Was Bob a Duke.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: Haven't heard that one?
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: It's It's an Australian horror movie made, written and directed
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 5: for a very low budget by and I'm going to
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 5: forget her name now, a.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: Woman writer director in Australia.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 5: And it is a incredibly compelling, dark horror movie about
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: a mother and a son and written from such a
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 5: personal space. And again I don't know the woman's history,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: but there's there's so much truth within that movie.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: So I'll just stop there from now.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's three. That's a good three. That's a good three. Now,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: where can people find you online?
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 5: Larry Wilson's screenwriting workshop. Please go there, check it out
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 5: and I hope to meet you in my seminars and
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 5: and then draw Door is my Twitter feed, and I'm
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 5: climbing back on Twitter today. I'm the website for the
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 5: workshop has just gone up in a new incarnation. I'm
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 5: going back on Twitter today. I'd love to hear from
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: anyone and Larry Wilson Writing Workshop. Go there and dot
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: com dot com, yeah, dot com excuse me, yeah, and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: draw on Twitter and I will be there and I
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 5: love to meet everyone.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: Larry Man, thank you so so much for being on
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: the show. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 4: Oh well, thank you so much, Alex. It's been great.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: I told you that Larry to be dropping some major
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: knowledge bombs on this episode, and I had a ball
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: talking to Larry. He's He's just awesome. It's awesome to
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: talk to someone of his caliber who's written some iconic,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: iconic movies in Hollywood, working within the Hollywood system, and
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: still giving back with his with his workshops and trying
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: to teach the next generation.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: So if you guys are in the.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: LA area, head over to the show notes of this episode,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: which are INDI film whoso dot com. For it's last
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: one forty eight. Don't forget to head over to freefilmbook
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: dot com. That's freefilmbook dot com to download your free
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: film making audiobook and screenwriting audiobooks from Audible. And guys,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: if you like the show and you really find some
• 1:16:55
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• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: an email, word it, you know, like it, you know,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: share it with everybody you know, because it really helps
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: to get the word out on what we're doing here
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: at Indie Film Huscle. So I really do truly appreciate it.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: Thank you guys all so.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: Much for the support, and I'm so glad that many
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: of you are finding value in what I do here,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: in my mumblings on the Indie Film Huscle podcast and
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: what we're doing at Indie film huscle dot com. So
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: thanks again as always, and keep that hustle going, keep
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: that dream alive, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: E F I L M h U S T l
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: E dot com.